Source: State of Chatbots 2018
Bots are not just a consumer side application. They are needed for B2B brands, too. For example, lead generation bots have become a popular source of leads for Segment.io, an enterprise software vendor. In the same vein, Lego created a chatbot, Ralph, and deployed it via Facebook to a targeted audience. Ralph was responsible for generating 25% of their entire holiday sales in 2017.
This is the heart of what consumers want, and what they mean by “real-time.”
3. Interviews and reviews
Have you ever picked up the phone to call a lead, customer, or advocate to ask them what they thought of your experience? I’ve asked this question around the world and only once found a marketer who said they have ever done so – once. Very few have ever made this a standard part of improvement. This is easily the number one way to get better at real-time. Simply ask.
This is a radically new idea for most marketers, and the key to getting it right is really simple. It is not a long interrogation, rather a quick and straightforward conversation.
Consumers demand real-time experiences. Only those brands that can see a new method of creating those experiences, use new tools like chatbots to converse with your audience in real time, and recognize the need for constant reviewing and iteration will be able to deliver.
For a dive deep into future predictions of marketing and what the next five years hold, watch "The Future of Marketing: 2019 Edition". In this series of short webinars, we’ll cover a wide range of topics, from the foundational changes in the role and scope of marketing to how your data use will change over the next five years.
